European leaders on Wednesday asked Barack Obama to share the US’s shale gas bonanza with Europe by facilitating gas exports to help counter the stranglehold Russia has on the continent’s energy needs.

With Russia’s gas monopoly, Gazprom, supplying a quarter of Europe’s gas needs, and almost all of the gas in parts of eastern Europe, the energy issue has soared to the top of Europe’s strategic agenda as a result of the Ukrainian crisis and the fear that the Kremlin will be able to blackmail Europe if a threatened trade war erupts.

Herman Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso, presidents of the European council and the European commission respectively, asked Obama to come up with measures that would favour European companies obtaining licences to export US shale gas in liquid form to Europe.

While European access to the US shale gas revolution is currently constrained by American licensing procedures, a successful conclusion of ongoing ambitious trade talks aimed at creating a transatlantic free trade area would also hasten European access to American gas.